Circle of Advisors

Frame of Mind Films is fortunate and privileged to draw on the longtime support and vast array of experiences from an exceptional circle of advisors. With their varied perspectives and voices of reason, these colleagues have dedicated time and energy to helping us excel in our mission.

M.J.Bogatin, Legal Counsel

M.J. Bogatin is a founding member of Bogatin, Corman & Gold, and has practiced law in the Bay Area for over 30 years. While he has broad civil law experience including both litigation and transactional matters, M.J. is most highly recognized as an Arts and Entertainment attorney. His practice emphasizes Art, Entertainment and Intellectual Property law matters, but includes Business and Personal Injury as well. He is also trained as a mediator, and serves on the Arts Arbitration and Mediation panel of California Lawyers for the Arts. M.J. was admitted to the California Bar in 1981. He is a graduate of Duke University (B.A. 1975, cum laude); University of Essex, U. K. (M.A. in Comparative Literature, 1977); and University of Denver (J.D. 1980). His practice encompasses all the arts: literary, performing, visual and multi-media. He has served on the boards of directors of several Bay Area theatres, and is currently on the board of SaveNature.org and Co-President of California Lawyers for the Arts. He speaks often at CLA workshops on copyright, trademark and contract issues for artists and authors, at local law schools and art academies, and nationally for CLE on his litigation specialty: Artists’ Moral Rights.

John has practiced corporate law in Silicon Valley since 1984. He is also a leading authority on benefit corporations and the legal architecture necessary to support the emerging sustainable business paradigm where corporations strive to be the best for the world and not solely to maximize profits for shareholders. John helps clients customize their legal architecture to support their corporation’s heroic purpose and values, and ensure continuity of culture. John is a frequent speaker on applied consciousness, sustainable business, and benefit corporations at such forums as TEDx, and Stanford’s University’s Graduate School of Business. He previously served as a member of the Corporations Committee of the Business Law Section of the California State Bar, was a California lawyer of the year in 2012 for his work on California’s benefit corporation legislation and is rated AV Preeminent. He is the author of Great from the Start: How Conscious Corporations Attract Success. He is also an accredited executive coach and student of consciousness.

Elsa Ramo founded Ramo Law PC firm in 2005 on the Universal Studios backlot. She graduated from University of San Diego School of Law in 2002, and began her career in entertainment law by establishing the Los Angeles office for Davis Dixon Kirby LLP (a royalty litigation firm). After several clients approached her to handle their independent productions, she created Ramo Law, which is now located in Beverly Hills. The focus of her firm is to provide comprehensive legal services to producers, financiers, creators and owners of film, television and digital content. Ms. Ramo is also a member of Film Independent, Women in Film, California Lawyers for the Arts and is the founder of PEFA (a professional organization for female attorneys in the entertainment industry).

Peter Samuelson has had an extensive career as a producer, senior corporate executive and social entrepreneur. Peter is President of Film Associates, Inc., a media consultancy and production company, and is a founding board member of Participant Media, former eBay President and philanthropist Jeffrey Skoll’s social action media company. His film and television credits include Arlington Road, Tom & Viv, Wilde, and Revenge of the Nerds, among others. He previously served as Chairman of the Executive Committee of Panavision, Inc. and was the first Managing Director of the Media Institute for Social Change at the University of Southern California. Peter founded the Starlight Children’s Foundation to provide psycho-social services to seriously ill children, and created Starbright World with Steven Spielberg and Norman Schwarzkopf to offer seriously ill teens an online social platform.

Denise began working in the San Francisco non-profit sector in 1985. She now provides accounting services to small businesses & non-profits, including a number of independent documentary filmmakers in San Francisco and Berkeley. She has a Masters in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco and an undergraduate degree in International Relations from U.C. Davis.

Joan Porter founded the Stillheart Institute, a nonprofit retreat center in Woodside, CA, which served thousands of people by providing space and programming for transformation and spiritual growth. After her move to Kauai, Joan has provided space for community gardens and organic farms, and is a vocal proponent of healthy safe agricultural practices that honor the sacredness of the land. Together with her husband Bill, Joan has founded diverse businesses and nonprofits that benefit the Kauai community, including Pu’ukumu School, Anaina Hou Community Park, Wai Koa Plantation, and Kauai Fresh Farms. Joan has a Masters Degree in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling from San Jose State University and attended the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology as a doctoral student.

As a long time film and video programmer, Zoë Elton serves as Program Director of Mill Valley Film Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the United States. Since the festival’s inception, she has distinguished herself by pioneering the exhibition of new and digital media in the 80s, initiating the festival’s recent Active Cinema program, and conducting interviews with festival guests such as Ang Lee, Helen Mirren and Uma Thurman, both onstage and in print. Zoë has served on panels for the Rockefeller Foundation, the Haas Foundation’s Creative Works Fund and the Independent Spirit Awards. She is a graduate of New College of Speech and Drama in London.

Tendzin Choegyal is the younger brother of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. He was recognized as a reincarnate lama (Ngari Rinpoche) at the age of three and underwent intensive training as a child before fleeing Tibet at the time of the Chinese invasion. Later he left the monastic life and has worked actively for the freedom of Tibet by serving in a variety of capacities, including as a resistance fighter, a Member of Parliament and secretary to H.H. the Dalai Lama. He currently resides in Dharamsala, India.

Rinchen Khando Choegyal is the founder and director of the Tibetan Nuns Project, a former Minister of Education in the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, founding President of the Tibetan Women’s Association, and sister-in-law of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She resides in Dharamsala, India.

Nicholas Vreeland is the Abbot of Rato Dratsang in South India, one of a few important Tibetan Government monasteries under the patronage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Vreeland is also Director of The Tibet Center, the oldest Tibetan Buddhist Center in New York City. He is a Buddhist monk and holds a Geshe degree, the equivalent of a PhD. Born in Geneva Switzerland, Vreeland was educated in Europe, North Africa, and the United States, after which he pursued a career in photography working as an assistant to Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, and studied film at New York University. In 1977 he met Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, founder of The Tibet Center, and became a monk in 1985. Vreeland is the editor of the books, An Open Heart, a New York Times best seller, and the 2011 release, A Profound Mind, both authored by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is also founder of Photos for Rato, a series of fund-raisers that have been held in France, Italy, Germany, India, and the U.S., which underwrote, through the sale of his photographs, a large part of the construction of Rato Monastery in India.

Rajiv Mehrotra is an Indian media icon and has been a personal ‘chela’ (student) of His Holiness for more than 30 years. Rajiv manages The Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness The Dalai Lama as Secretary/Trustee. Until recently, he hosted In Conversation, one of India’s longest running and most widely viewed talk shows. His books include The Mind of The Guru, Understanding the Dalai Lama, The Essential Dalai Lama, Thakur - a biography of Sri Ramakrishna and Conversations with The Dalai Lama. He also works as an independent filmmaker and has won close to a hundred international and eighteen national awards from the President of India for his films. He is President of The Media Foundation and serves on the boards of several institutions, including the Norbulinka Institute of Tibetan Culture, the Core Group of the Press Council of India, FTII and the 12th Plan Committee on Telecommunications, Information and Broadcasting.

Jane Moore is a leading picture research editor & historical authority on the institution of the Dalai Lama. Jane is the founder of Tibet Images, a commercial photo library specializing in Tibet and Tibetan communities in exile. Tibet Images has supplied materials to major magazines, books, documentaries and films throughout the world. It has also contributed to numerous museums, events and festivals throughout Europe, Australia and the US, supplying not only photo material but clear, accurate information, under His Holiness the Dalai Lama's guidelines. Jane has also curated or co-curated several exhibitions highlighting the Tibetan issue, including '50 years of exile' for the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 'Tibet: Memories from the Roof of the World' for the Songsten Library, Dehra Dun and International Centre, Delhi and 'Tulkus: 1880-2018', an ongoing project into incarnate lamas. Her work also includes projects for the Royal Geographical Society, Illustrated London News and various magazines at Conde Nast and The Times/Sunday Times Magazine, where she became Photo Editor in 2000. From 2006 - 2008, she was Feature Stories Picture Editor at the Press Association of the UK where she covered the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony for His Holiness in Washington DC.

As a producer, creator and entrepreneur, Sheryl Leach is a leader in the field of family and children's entertainment. As the Founder/Creator of Barney, she built Barney into one of the highest-rated children's series on television, one of the best-selling children's video brands in the history of the industry, and into a record-breaking international licensing and publishing phenomenon. Sheryl also co-founded the Shei’rah Foundation which supports media projects that celebrate the human spirit. They have sponsored projects with Link TV, Connecticut Public Television, NEXTNEXT Entertainment, the Global White Lion Protection Trust, The Alliance For a New Humanity, Foundation for Conscious Evolution, and Frame of Mind Films. Sheryl was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by the CNBC cable network, has been honored with a National Freedoms Foundation Award, and has received a national humanitarian award from B'nai B'rith International -- the first woman to receive this prestigious award since Eleanor Roosevelt.

Marilyn Fowler is Founder and President of the Women’s Intercultural Network (WIN), a non-governmental organization consultative to the United Nations, based in San Francisco, California. WIN links women across cultures globally and in U.S. communities for collective action and is founded on the idea that the voices of women and girls need to be heard around the world, and to understand a country’s politics we must understand its culture.